The Best American Poetry 1996, a volume in The Best American Poetry series, was edited by David Lehman and by guest editor Adrienne Rich.
| Poet | Poem | Where poem previously appeared |
| "The Tombs" | Extracts from Pelican Bay | |
| "Capital Punishment" | Indiana Review | |
| "Morning in the Burned House" | North American Review | |
| "Cancer Garden" | The Occident | |
| "Porkskin Panorama" | Callaloo | |
| "Strong's Winter" | The Southern Review | |
| "David Talamantez on the Last Day of Second Grade" | The Texas Observer | |
| "Cauldron" | The Kenyon Review | |
| "American Sonnet (35)" | River City | |
| "Me Again" | In Time | |
| "Transfer" | TriQuarterly | |
| "The Arrival of the Titanic" | Poetry | |
| "A Night Without Stars" | Alaska Review Quarterly | |
| "A History of Navigation" | Poetry Northwest | |
| "Rednecks" | Ploughshares | |
| "Sleeping on the Bus" | The Progressive | |
| "Poem Not to Be Read at Your Wedding" | Farmer's Market | |
| "In This Place" | Extracts from Pelican Bay | |
| "Para El" | The Americas Review | |
| "Two Girls" | The American Voice | |
| "Kapital" | The Kenyon Review | |
| "White Beach" | The Southern Review | |
| "All (Facts, Stories, Chance)" | River Styx | |
| "Possession: A Zuihitsu" | Another Chicago Magazine | |
| "Plainsong" | Poetry Flash | |
| "The Prisoner of Camau" | Beloit Poetry Journal | |
| "The Steadying" | Triquarterly | |
| Jonathan Johnson | "Renewal" | Cream City Review |
| "Reading Aloud to My Father" | Poetry | |
| "Two Canadian Landscapes" | Private | |
| "Nude Study" | The Kenyon Review | |
| "Touch Me" | The New Yorker | |
| "Foot Fire Burn Dance" | Hanging Loose | |
| "Boxing the Female" | Hanging Loose | |
| "Kolohe or Communication" | Manoa | |
| "It Is Not" | Prairie Schooner | |
| "The River and Under the River" | No Roses Review | |
| "Edge Effect" | Poetry | |
| "b o d y" | The New York Times | |
| "Lament for the Makers" | Poetry | |
| "Far Away" | Colorado Review | |
| "Girl Tearing Up Her Face" | The Paris Review | |
| "Mangos y limones" | Prairie Schooner | |
| "One of the Longest Times" | Fourteen Hills | |
| "The Small Vases from Hebron" | Many Mountains Moving | |
| "The Eighth and Thirteenth" | Poetry Flash | |
| "Harlem Suite" | Drumvoices Revue | |
| "As From a Quiver of Arrows" | The Atlantic Monthly | |
| "Song of Calling Souls" | Sulfur | |
| "Poet and When the Spirit Spray-Paints the Sky" | TriQuarterly | |
| "Sestina for Jaime" | In Time | |
| "Twenty-One Years" | The Southern Review | |
| "Domingo Limón" | Prairie Schooner | |
| "Abundance and Satisfaction" | Iowa Review | |
| "Prometheus at Coney Island" | Hanging Loose | |
| "For the Evening Land" | Lingo | |
| "Crepuscule" | Poetry | |
| "Skin Trade" | Ploughshares | |
| "Passive Resistance" | Poetry | |
| "Fair Trade" | Prairie Schooner | |
| "Flight" | Callaloo | |
| "heat" | Hanging Loose | |
| "Honeycomb perfection of this form before me..." | Sulfur | |
| "Aisle of Dogs" | Iowa Review | |
| "Ghost Sickness" | Many Mountains Moving | |
| "Tell Me, What Is the Soul" | The New Yorker | |
| "Crazy Courage" | Prairie Schooner | |
| "The Case" | The Paris Review | |
| "The Butcher's Apron" | Many Mountains Moving | |
| "Yellow Wolf Spirit" | Callaloo | |
| "Run on a Warehouse" | The Paris Review | |
| "Meeting Like This" | Weber Studies | |
| "The Mill-Race" | TriQuarterly | |
| "Vespers" | The Southern Review | |
| "Our Bird Aegis" | Callaloo | |